


A Cup of Kindness

by owlaholic68



Series: Try Again [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Trauma, Deaf Character, Disabled Character, Enclave Remnants, Game Spoilers, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prequel, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-03
Updated: 2017-12-03
Packaged: 2019-02-10 02:33:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12902085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlaholic68/pseuds/owlaholic68
Summary: When a group of refugees arrive at Arroyo seeking shelter, they’re welcomed with open arms. After all, they have a child with them. But as the months go by, Carla starts to get suspicious.Just who are these people, and who are they running from?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to [If at first you don't succeed...](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11621802/chapters/26131452).

Carla’s out by the water purifier when one of the gate guards approaches her. She sets aside her wrench and takes out her Pip-Boy, nodding at the man to speak.

“Visitors, Ma’am. They said they wanted to speak with you personally,” he says. She nods in thanks and follows him to the gates. A small group, about five or six people, stand huddled together in the freezing February air. They are bundled in jackets and toting large backpacks. 

“Carla,” one of them says, stepping forward, and her eyes widen in recognition. 

“Doctor Henry,” she croaks. The Doctor wearily smiles at her and says something to one of his companions, a friendly-looking man. 

“It’s good to see you well,” he says. “Let me introduce you to my companions. This is Judah Kreger.” He gestures to two other men standing behind them, one with a hostile posture and the other one with relaxed shoulders. “That’s Moreno and Johnson.” 

Lenny enters Carla’s field of vision and offers a shy smile to the group. Carla notices a few of the men twitch at the sight of a ghoul, but they otherwise control their instinctive reactions. 

Two women stand together near the back of the group. “The shorter one is Daisy Whitman, the taller one is Maria Gannon.” Doctor Henry cranes his head to look at the back of the group. “Is Arcade awake?” 

The woman that he had identified as Maria nods. “Yeah, he woke up a few minutes ago. Arcade, sweetie, do you want to say hello?” She apparently gets a confirmation, because she walks to the front of the group. A little kid is holding her hand and shyly ducking behind her legs. He’s wearing a coat that almost reaches his ankles, the sleeves rolled up but still hanging past his hands. 

“Hello,” he quietly says, curiously peeking up at them through crooked wire-frame glasses. “It’s very nice to meet you.” 

Carla kneels down to be at his level. “Hello, Arcade. My name is Carla. How old are you?” 

“Four,” he says, then coughs, hiding his face in his sleeve. 

“Poor thing caught a cold on the way up,” Judah explains. “Can we talk somewhere warm?” 

Carla leads them into her house, where a fire is already lit in the fireplace. Introductions are made to the rest of her group, and Marcus greets Doctor Henry with warmth, thanking him for helping them when Carla had lost her arm and her hearing.  _ That was four years ago _ , Carla realizes.  _ It’s been four years like this. Four years without dying once. Four years just continuing to live.  _

“We have a favor to ask,” Judah says once they’ve sat down with cups of coffee and sandwiches.  

“I owe Doctor Henry my life,” Carla says. “Ask away.” She coughs from the strain of speaking and Lenny pushes her cup of water towards her with a significant glance. 

“To be honest, we have nowhere to go. We can move on once spring comes, but we can’t travel in this weather any further.” Judah nods at Arcade, who is sitting by the fireplace with a mug of hot chocolate, his mother hovering over him and tucking a blanket around his shoulders. “All we ask is shelter for a few months.” 

Carla and Lenny look at each other. Over the last year, they’ve started coming up with a system of hand signs to communicate. 

‘Where?’ Lenny signs. Carla frowns. 

‘Empty house,’ she responds. ‘Seven people. Big enough.’ 

He looks skeptical. 

‘Can build bigger, add more rooms,’ she argues. ‘Sick kid. They stay.’ He nods in agreement. 

“You can stay as long as you want,” Carla says. “Welcome to Arroyo.” 

* * *

The group settles into a house just down the street from Carla’s. After four years, Arroyo is growing from a small village into a real town. Almost every day is spent building or designing a new building, from a marketplace to more storage, to a schoolroom for the children. The new group’s house is a little cramped with seven people, but they don’t complain. 

The new people prove to be very useful. They immediately offer their help, and fully integrate into the town within a few weeks. Judah is an exceptional leader, and often helps Carla revise plans for expansions of Arroyo. Henry and Moreno help Lenny develop winter-resistant plant varieties, and Daisy and Johnson assist with construction. Arcade’s mother helps organize the new marketplace and teaches the villagers how to handle finances. 

Of all of them, Arcade himself has the hardest time adapting. And Carla can’t blame him. The group hadn’t explained exactly why they had no home to return to, but she can infer that something serious had happened, and that they had abruptly been uprooted.  _ That kind of stress would be hard for a four-year-old to deal with.  _ After speaking with Maria, Carla also learns that his father had recently been killed, and that their home had been destroyed. 

Carla tries to coax Arcade to come to the small school with the other children, but he stubbornly refuses. He hardly comes out of the house, and when he does, he sticks close to his mother or one of the others. Carla brings him books, which he accepts with a nod and a quiet “Thank you.” 

Maria will bring Carla the same book the next morning, explaining with a fond smile that Arcade had already finished it. “My smart boy,” she’ll say, and Carla will smile too. “The school,” Carla will suggest, but Maria will just shake her head and the smile will fade from her kind face.

February passes like this. 

* * *

In hindsight, they probably should have warned the newcomers about Carla’s nightmares. 

Daisy is waken in the middle of the night by little hands shaking her. Arcade is repeating her name in a panicked voice, his blond hair sticking up in all directions. Immediately, she’s on guard, already reaching under her pillow for a knife when she hears the screaming. 

“I got up to get water and I heard her yelling, and Aunt Daisy I don’t know what’s going on, are we being attacked do we have to leave now-” Arcade is crying and Daisy quickly leads him into the small living room and sits him by the fireplace. “I didn’t know what to do, I’m sorry-” 

“No, shush,” she says. “You go wake up your Mom, and I’m going to go over there and see what’s wrong, okay? I’m sure she’s just having a bad dream. Just cover your ears. I’ll be right back.” He nods and runs to the bedroom with his hands over his ears. 

When Daisy knocks on the door of Carla’s house, nobody answers at first. But after almost a minute, Vic the repairman opens the door, rubbing his eyes. Carla’s screaming has increased in intensity.

“What’s going on? What’s wrong?” Daisy asks, and Vic seems to take a moment to understand the question. 

“Fuck, sorry, we should have warned you,” he says. “This is one of her bad nights. She’s been fine for a month now, but,” he sighs, “it’s the number nightmare again. We don’t know what it’s about, but it’s one of the worst ones. She’ll be done in a few minutes.” 

Daisy can hear Lenny inside repeating calming phrases to Carla as she pleads for someone to “let me out,  _ please  _ just let me out.” Daisy shivers at the raw terror in her voice and thanks Vic before quickly jogging back to their house. 

Arcade is in his mother’s bed with a pillow over his head. Maria is rubbing his back and frowning. 

“She just had a bad dream,” Daisy explains. The noise starts to fade until they no longer hear anything. “See, she’s okay now. How about we all just go back to bed?”

“We’ll try,” Maria says. “Come on, Arcade. Let’s try to go back to sleep.” 

Daisy peeks her head into the other bedrooms, but everybody else is fast asleep.  _ We were all soldiers. When did we start feeling safe enough to sleep so heavily? Even I didn’t wake up, and I used to be wide awake if I even heard a footstep that seemed out of place. I’m not sure if Moreno ever got a full night’s sleep back in the NCR.  _

This complacency and comfort disturbs her, and she herself doesn’t get much more sleep that night. 

* * *

The cold morning air bites Arcade’s cheeks, and he shivers. His new jacket that Moreno had sewed for him was warm, but not  _ that  _ warm. He knows that his mother would scold him for going out with a hat or scarf, but she’s fast asleep. 

_ I shouldn’t have woken her up last night,  _ he thinks.  _ I should have just stayed quiet and not bothered Daisy or Mom.  _ He shivers and walks to the edge of the village and looks out at the wasteland. He looks back and realizes he doesn’t know the village that well, and starts wandering, trying to find his way back to the house. 

Nobody else is up at this hour besides a few sleepy guards. He avoids them. 

He hears a noise. It’s a smacking sound, a dull  _ thud _ . Someone grunts and mutters to themselves, breathing heavily. He peeks around the side of a building and sees a place that he recognizes as a training area. Carla stands in front of a punching bag and hits it over and over, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

Arcade hesitates.  _ Mom said she’s nice. But Henry said that we can’t tell her. He said I can’t tell anyone.  _ He makes a decision and walks over to the training area. 

“Carla?” He says, but she doesn’t respond, back turned towards him. He tries again, louder, but she still doesn’t turn or stop. Then he remembers that Henry had said that she couldn’t hear him, and that she had to see him to know he was there. So he walks around the punching bag, giving her a wide berth. 

She sees him and stops punching for a second, giving him a tired smile and a wave.  _ Henry said that she can understand me if she’s holding her little machine, and that I have to wait if she’s not holding it _ . He sits on a bench and watches her punch the bag a few more times. She sits on the ground in front of the bench and pulls out her Pip-Boy, looking down at the screen while she unwraps her hand.

“Hi,” she says. 

“Good morning, Carla. Are you feeling better?” He asks. She looks confused for a second before nodding. “Okay. Good. You were yelling last night, it was really scary, I couldn’t sleep,” he confesses, and Carla just nods again before offering him an apology. 

“I run now,” she says, her voice raspy. She takes a drink of water from a small bottle. “Want to join me?” 

They run around the perimeter of the village. Well, Carla leisurely jogs and Arcade runs to keep up. He feels warm from the exercise, and more energized than he’s felt in a while. He was sick for awhile, still weak from the long voyage on foot. He sees his house, Judah leaning out the window talking to Lenny. 

“Race you to the house,” Carla says, and Arcade immediately takes the challenge, sprinting ahead of Carla and getting a burst of speed. She’s just a few feet behind him when he touches the wall of the house. 

“Beat you!” He laughs. “Too slow!” 

She bends over and pretends to gasp from exhaustion. 

“Wow, that w-was real fast, A-Arcade!” Lenny says, and he beams from the praise. The ghoul hands Carla a water bottle and kisses her on the cheek. 

“Good job! Carla’s a tough opponent to beat!” Judah adds with a wink in Carla’s direction. She grins and gives Arcade a high-five. 

Maria pokes her head out the door. “Oh good, Arcade, I was wondering where you were. Come on in, Moreno just finished making breakfast.” He waves to Carla and Lenny, then runs inside telling his Mom all about the great race he won. 

‘Happy,’ Carla signs as she’s making tea. ‘Good.’ 

Lenny nods. ‘Sad, serious kid. Shy.’ 

Carla taps the side of her head. ‘Smart. I want him to be happy.’ She pauses. ‘All of them. Everyone.’ 

Lenny smiles and takes the teacup she offers. ‘Me too.’ 

* * *

Arcade still doesn’t go to school or play with the other children of the village, but sometimes he ventures out of the house. He’s fascinated by Goris and Marcus, though he seems to scared to approach either of them. 

A caravan comes from the Den, pushing through the vestiges of winter to deliver supplies and to trade for some of Arroyo’s ample food supply. It’s a relief, and morale in the village is lifted at the prospect of soon receiving more caravans from farther away. The NCR and New Reno ones don’t travel so far north during the winter, so they’ve only had contact with nearby settlements for months. 

The new group doesn’t seem to share the positive sentiments, however. Some of them seem restless and worried. Judah pulls Carla aside to ask if NCR caravans will be coming, and she thinks that ‘in a few months’ is not the answer he was hoping for. Arcade seems to have no interest in looking at the caravans, unlike the other children, choosing to stay in his room when they arrive. 

Sulik asks him if he wants anything and he quickly shakes his head. “No thank you,” he says. “I don’t need anything.” 

“No books? No toys? Not big deal,” Sulik presses, then drops the issue when Arcade just shakes his head and changes the subject. 

In April, the first NCR caravan gets through. They deliver letters and packages, sharing news of the other wasteland communities. 

“Letter for you from President Tandi,” one of them says, giving Carla a small envelope. “It’s important. I’ve been ordered to wait for your response.” 

She opens the letter. 

_ Dear Carla, _

_ You would be interested to know that the NCR has recently taken the old Navarro base. We are concerned about the threat that the remnants of the Enclave pose. We know of some of these war criminals who have fled north, but we’ve lost their trail. It’s unlikely that they would try and hide with you, considering your reputation and your distance, but we want to cover all of our bases. Have you seen any suspicious people in the area recently, or heard any rumors of Enclave activity?  _

_ Sincerely, _

_ Tandi.  _

Carla frowns, feeling a pit of anxiety churn her stomach at the mention of the Enclave. Lenny notices her distress and approaches, glancing at the letter over her shoulder. Carla holds up a finger to the messenger, asking him to give her a minute to write a response. 

‘Worried,’ she signs once they’re alone in their house. ‘Not safe.’ 

Lenny re-reads the letter. ‘No problems here. Safe.’ 

‘ _ Worried _ ,’ she repeats, then points her finger at the words ‘Enclave’ and ‘war criminals’ in the letter. ‘ _ Not safe _ . More security.’ 

Lenny agrees. ‘Keep secret?’ he asks. Carla bites her lip, then nods. She sits and writes back to Tandi, mentioning recent rumors of Vertibirds sighted over the Den, but that nothing else suspicious has happened.  She signs the letter and shoves it into an envelope, giving it to Lenny to give to the messenger. Then she scribbles a quick note to Marcus, who is in charge of security in the village. She simply informs him that they should increase guard rotations because of the increased raider activity that happens every spring. 

She folds Tandi’s letter and puts it into a drawer, underneath some other papers. As she passes by the marketplace on her way back to the gates, she idly notices that none of the newcomers are there.  _ They must be helping out in the fields today getting ready for planting.  _ She shrugs and thinks nothing of it. 

* * *

“We could move on now if you wanted,” Henry says to her one day in late April. “We said we’d only stay until spring. If you want us out of your hair…” 

She shakes her head. “Stay as long as you want,” she affirms. “Not good for Arcade to move so soon.”

Henry nods. “Okay. We’ll stay for the summer.” 

* * *

Vic hands Carla a wrench and she nods. 

“How do you know which one to use?” Arcade asks. Carla, head in the inner workings of their brand-new solar generator, doesn’t hear him. 

“It all depends on the size of the object,” Vic explains. “The bigger the bolt, the bigger the wrench.” Arcade nods and watches as they get the generator working, eyes wide and interested. “Do you want to be an engineer when you grow up, Arcade?” 

He shakes his head emphatically. “No! I want to be a doctor!” 

Carla catches the tail end of his sentence. She wipes her hands on her work clothes. “Like Len. Ask him to teach you.” She smiles at his hesitation. “Scared because he’s a ghoul? He’s nice.” 

“Do you really think he’d show me something about being a doctor?” Arcade asks, and receives a knowing nod from Carla. 

“He’s very nice, and I’m sure he’d love to show you around his clinic,” Vic adds. “You got that part done, Carla? Let’s see if it works.” Together, they hook up the generator to the solar panels. It turns on with a satisfying rumble. 

Something sparks and Carla flinches. Arcade reaches up and smooths his hair down. It’s standing completely on end. 

“Bad connection here, Carla,” Vic says, and points out a wire down in the generator. “Here, let me turn it off first,” he says, but Carla is already sticking her hand in with a confident grin. 

“No problem,” she says, then yelps in pain and withdraws her hand, shaking her wrist. Then she feels a phantom shock, and she knows that she’s not  _ there _ . But she can’t help thinking about it and remembering every time she had to go through the maze, and all of the times that electricity fried her brain and killed her, and she thought that she was  _ over  _ all of that, but here it is again, and it’s like it was all those cycles, where she can’t  _ breathe  _ and she’s  _ trying  _ but she just  _ can’t _ -

Carla starts crying and Arcade recoils in fear. “What’s wrong, Carla?” He says, “are you hurt, what’s wrong, are you okay-” 

“Go get Lenny,” Vic orders, pulling Carla up and dragging her away from the generator. “He’s in the fields right now. Go, run!”

He obeys without a second of hesitation, sprinting as fast as he can to the edge of the village where the crops are planted. He falls once and scrapes his knee, but scrambles to his feet and keeps running. 

“Lenny!” he yells when the ghoul comes into sight. Johnson and Henry are with him, and look alarmed at his approach. “Help! Lenny! ” 

“What-what’s wrong?” he asks. “Are you h-hurt?” 

“No,” Arcade stops and pants, “Carla, she’s hurt or something, I don’t know, Vic said to come get you-” Lenny is already off running towards the village as soon as he mentions Carla. 

Johnson kneels in front of Arcade and pulls out a rag, dipping it into his water bottle and cleaning the scrape on his knee. “Now, there, buddy, let’s just wait here until all that gets sorted out.” 

Arcade bites his lip and looks back at the village. “No, I want to go see Carla and see if she’s okay, she looked really hurt-” 

“Hey, Lenny’s going to take care of her,” Henry says. “You were very brave and good, Arcade. Let’s just walk around the field, okay?” When Arcade pouts and looks like he wants to disagree, Henry adds, “you can go talk to her when she’s better, and I’m sure she’ll be glad to see you.” 

Arcade hesitates, then nods and takes Henry’s and Johnson’s hands. “Okay.” 

* * *

It’s late July, and the village is gearing up for its annual celebration. Carla sits above Arroyo on a hill, watching Arcade squeal and flail as Daisy picks him up and tickles him. 

_ I’ll be twenty five years old soon. And life is only getting better. All that I did was worth it. _

The sweet smell of food drifts up from the marketplace. The sun is setting behind the village, a few clouds rolling in, warning of a rainy night. Carla sits and watches all that she’s built thrive. Lenny waves to her from the edge of town. She blows him a kiss and starts down the hill. 

_ I’m glad it all turned out like this. Even if I lost some things, I gained so much.  _

* * *

“Good job!” Arcade says, and puts a little bandaid on Marcus’ arm. “You are a good patient. Now I need to check your heart.” He takes a stethoscope from around his neck, ridiculously large in his tiny hands. He puts it against Marcus’ chest and squints as if he’s listening. 

“Is my heart good, Doctor?” Marcus asks, playing along. The kid has become significantly less scared of him, and he wants to keep it that way. If all it takes is a few minutes of playing patient to him, then those few minutes are worth it. 

Arcade solemnly nods. “Very good.” Lenny hands him a clipboard and a crayon and he scribbles a few shaky numbers on the piece of paper. “Here is your prescription.” He tears the paper and gives it to the super mutant, who very seriously thanks him. 

“Arcade, honey? It’s time for dinner,” his mother says, poking her head in the door of the clinic. Arcade sets down his stuff, but then screws up his face in a frown. 

“No, Mom, I want to keep playing. I’m not hungry.” 

Maria frowns. “No, Arcade, it’s time to eat dinner. And we can play later-” 

“No,” he stomps his little foot. “No, Mom, shut up! I don’t wanna!” 

Marcus raises his eyebrows at this display of toddler stubbornness. Maria crosses her arms. 

“Arcade, go to your room. Five minute timeout. No buts. I’ll come get you and we can talk about this later.” She points out the door. “Room. Now.” He pouts but obeys, stomping dramatically out the door. “Sorry about that,” she apologizes to Lenny and Marcus. “Growing pains, you know how it is. Just a little bit of four-year-old rebellion.” 

* * *

“Have you ever been to the Golden Gate Bridge?” Arcade asks. “Daisy said that it’s really pretty and red. I think that it would be gold like the name, but she said that it’s red.” 

Carla nods. “Red crayon, please.” Arcade digs through the box of crayon stubs and hands a red one to her. She starts to draw. 

“What are you drawing, Arcade?” Goris asks. In an effort to make the boy more comfortable around him, he decided to participate in their play session. He couldn’t hold a crayon with his sharp claws, but he could watch and ask questions. 

“My family!” Arcade says. He pushes up his glasses, and Carla makes a mental note to try and find him a better-fitting pair. “We have Mom and Daisy,” he points to two stick figures with long hair, “and Henry and Johnson and Moreno and Judah,” he points to a collection of misshapen vaguely-human shapes. “And Dad isn’t here anymore, so he’s not in my picture. But Mom says that he’s always with me. Should I draw him?” 

Carla shrugs. “Whatever you want.”  _ Four-year-olds are smart _ , she thinks.  _ He can think logically and figure it out by himself.  _

Arcade thinks. “No, I know that he’s there. I don’t need to draw him.” He sets aside that paper and grabs another piece. 

“What are you drawing now?” Goris asks. Arcade looks sly and hugs his paper close, keeping one hand over his work. He seems to prefer the blue crayon over the other ones, only occasionally switching to a black or brown one. 

“Done,” Carla says, and shows him a rough sketch of the Golden Gate Bridge, complete with Hubologist spaceship. “You?” 

He shyly uncovers his work. A bunch of stick figures stand. One is very obviously Carla: it’s only got one arm and it’s all colored in blue and yellow. Its hand is raised in a wave. A figure next to her is probably Lenny judging by the wavy lines that Arcade used to represent his ghoulishness. Vic and Sulik make appearances too, and then there are two figures that Arcade tried very hard to represent with his toddler capacity for drawing. 

“Is that me?” Goris asks, pointing a sharp claw at a figure that seems like a hunched over brown blob with really long feet. Arcade proudly nods, then points at the other figure. “Marcus,” Goris guesses, and gets another nod in return. The Marcus drawing is just a large green blob with a goofy smile. 

Carla gives him a thumbs up. “Name,” she says, and points at the bottom corner. Even though Arcade still refused to go to school, his family wanted to make sure he wasn’t behind other children of his age. He could read at an extraordinarily high level, but some of his motor skills were falling behind as a result of his tendency to stay inside and read. 

Arcade shakily writes a passable version of his name. Carla takes a crayon. “Date,” she says, and writes 2246. “To remember,” she says.

* * *

Marcus doesn’t make a habit of eavesdropping. But when he walks by the newcomer’s door and hears raised voices, he stops and can’t tamp down his natural curiosity. 

“Good intentions? You want to talk about  _ good intentions _ ?” Moreno snaps. 

“Moreno, come on, you know I don’t-” It takes Marcus a second to recognize the voice as Johnson’s. 

“They were going to take a toddler from his family and do who-knows-what with him while we rotted away in prison!” He argues. “They made us run through the wasteland in the coldest month of the year with a little kid! He could’ve gotten sick and  _ died _ , Johnson. Don’t ever talk like the NCR had  _ good  _ intentions with us.” 

“I know,” Johnson sighs. “But they were just trying to protect themselves. We weren’t always the good guys, Moreno, and if you knew that someone who’d killed like we’ve killed was going to be near Arcade, would you even  _ hesitate  _ to protect him? To protect all of us?” 

Marcus has heard enough. He doesn’t understand everything, but he realizes that this group weren’t refugees, they were outcasts. But as long as they didn’t actively pose a threat, Arroyo would continue to welcome them. For now. 

* * *

_ When you read this, I will be gone for good. Do not grieve too much for me. _

Carla stops writing and considers the line she just wrote.  _ Is that too dramatic?  _ She wonders, then shrugs and continues writing. 

_ Everything that I tell you is true. I know it’s hard to believe, but maybe it will help explain things.  _ She takes a deep breath.  _ I have lived for longer than you could ever imagine. I have lived the year 2241 one hundred times, dying every time and then coming back. But this time was my last try, and I made it.  _

_ Len, you often asked me how I knew how to drive. It’s because when I sat down in the driver’s seat, I knew the Highwayman better than I knew myself. Marcus, when you asked me why I had parts for the mine purifier in my car when I arrived in Broken Hills, know now that it’s because I have fixed that air purifier almost fifty times. I could do it in my sleep.  _

She pauses and forces herself to keep writing.  _ I have died too many times to count (21) being electrocuted on the Oil Rig. I have died twice by Frank Horrigan’s hands, and those two deaths will always haunt me. I have-  _ She wipes away a few tears,  _ I have seen each of you die at least once, and those always hurt more than my own deaths. I-  _

“Carla?” Arcade whispers and peeks in the room. She turns at the movement of the door and quickly picks up her Pip-Boy. “Lenny says he needs you for something out at the purifier.” 

She nods and wipes under her eyes before shoving the papers into her desk. She pats Arcade on the head and breezes past him out of the house.  _ He’s getting tall. What a difference the last few months have made. It’s September now, and he just turned five. If this was the Pre-War times, he’d be going into kindergarten.  _

Arcade lingers in the doorway. The rest of Carla’s house is empty. He looks at the desk and notices that one of the bottom drawers is partially open. He’s torn between a burgeoning curiosity and an as-yet-underdeveloped morality, and does what any five-year-old does best: get into things they shouldn’t. 

The first few papers are drawings and blueprints, but the rest are letters. He can’t read most of the long words, but one word catches his eye. It’s the bad word that he’s not supposed to  _ ever  _ say, and it’s written on a piece of paper.  _ Enclave _ . Then he sees  _ Navarro  _ and  _ NCR  _ and doesn’t understand the rest, but he knows that this is  _ bad _ , this is what Judah and Moreno spend hours talking about when they think he’s asleep, this is why they had to run away from their last home. 

In a burst of impulsivity, he pockets the letter and runs out of the house. He hides away in the room that he shares with his mother until she comes to fetch him for dinner. 

“Arcade, are you okay?” she asks, and he suddenly realizes that he’s  _ not  _ okay, because they’re going to have to leave here now, because he’s almost sure that Carla knows who they are. And he wants so badly to be a big boy of five years old, but he can’t because he’s already crying. “Oh, sweetie, are you feeling sick?” At a loss, he nods. “Okay, well come on out to the kitchen if you want something to eat, okay?” 

Dr. Henry comes in to check on him in a few hours. Arcade seizes the excuse he’s been given and complains of an icky feeling and an upset tummy. Henry feels his forehead and hums thoughtfully. “Just get some sleep,” he says, and Arcade does so, feeling the weight of the letter in his pocket. 

If he had some sense of logic, he would have told the adults what was going on. But he was just a scared little five-year-old boy, and he didn’t know what to do. 

He pretends to be asleep, but he's thinking. Everyone told him that if something ever happened, he needed to just run, and that they would all meet up at the nearest town. He's got an emergency backpack filled with survival supplies stashed away, each one of them did, in case the worst happened. He'd looked at a map before, he knows that Klamath isn't too far away, he might have enough food and water to get there. 

His mother falls asleep. Arcade waits until he hears everyone else settle down before getting up and getting dressed, tying his jacket around his waist and tucking a knife from the kitchen into his belt. His backpack is heavy, but it needs to be. He's a big boy, he can handle it.

He quietly cracks the front door open and slips out, shutting it behind him. He's small enough to sneak past the guards and out into the fields. Then Arcade is leaving Arroyo behind without even a glance over his shoulder. 

* * *

Carla is shaken awake by Lenny. He presses her gun into her hand. ‘Raiders,’ he signs. She's immediately on her feet and strapping on belts of ammo and stimpacks, running out the door with Lenny and Marcus close behind. The entire village is awake and mobilizing; they’ve rigged up a siren for this very situation.

With cold weather on the way in a few months, raiders are starting to get desperate and bold. There are a lot of them, and they're well-armed and ferocious. 

Carla shoots and shoots until she has to reload. She easily ejects the empty clip and slams the butt of the gun on the belt of ammunition around her chest, and the new clip slides in and breaks off from the belt. It's not a perfect system, but it works well enough. 

A raider swings at her from the side and staggers her, and she wishes she had grabbed her powerfist too, but there hadn't been time. She drops her pistol and punches the raider in the face, but it only stuns him for a second. 

A burst of bright green plasma fire whizzes past her and she flinches, every instinct screaming  _ Enclave _ . The raider in front of her falls and she snatches up her gun from the ground and whirls to point it at whoever shot. 

“Whoa, Carla, it’s just me!” Judah Kreger says, raising his hands defensively. Carla doesn’t hear him and doesn’t care. Her chest is heaving with panicked breaths. She keeps her gun up. Judah doesn’t move. 

Around them, the battle quickly finishes. She sees more plasma fire, and  _ where did they get those weapons, nobody uses those except the Enclave, but they aren’t _ - _ they can’t be- _

“C-Carla?” Lenny says, nervously approaching and looking between them. Henry, Daisy, Johnson, and Moreno gather behind Judah. Moreno starts to raise his gun, but Judah cuts him off with a shake of his head. 

“Len,” Carla says, and Lenny, seeing her hand occupied, grabs her Pip-Boy and holds it in front of her face, his other hand on her shoulder. The two groups stare at each other. 

“Enclave?” Carla asks, and her voice shakes. 

Doctor Henry looks at her. “Carla, I’m sorry, I-” 

She points the pistol more forcefully at them. “ _ Enclave _ ?” she demands, and the lack of negative response is all she needs to confirm her suspicions. 

“I know they hurt you, Carla, but-” 

“You don’t know  _ anything _ !” Carla shrieks, cutting of Henry’s apology. “They took away  _ everything  _ from me, and you think it’s okay to bring them  _ here _ ?”  _ We were in danger this whole time. We were never safe. Everything I had accomplished, my precarious happy ending, could have been destroyed just by letting a few strangers in.  _

“Please, we had nowhere else to go,” Henry says. “The NCR were hunting us down. They were going to take Arcade and lock us all up in prison-” 

“Don’t care.” Carla says, and aims her pistol. “Got five shots. One for each of you.”  _ Wait. There’s supposed to be seven of them. Where are- _

Len turns his head, and Carla turns and sees Maria running up to them with something clutched to her chest, tears in her eyes. 

“Have you seen Arcade?” She asks, and Carla recognizes this particular brand of motherly panic. “He’s gone, his emergency pack is gone, I found this letter on his bed-” She bravely walks past Carla and shoves a letter into Judah’s hands. 

“Dear Carla, you would be interested to know that the NCR has recently taken the old Navarro base,” he reads, and Carla’s eyes widen in recognition.  _ That’s the letter that Tandi sent me back in the spring. How did Arcade get that letter?  _ Judah skims the letter and sighs. “He’s a smart kid. We always told him that if anyone ever found out about us, he needed to run. Our meet-up spot in case of emergency is Klamath. He’s probably heading in that direction.” 

“God, he’s all alone out there,” Moreno says, shaking his head in horror. “He’s just a kid. We have to find him before something happens.” 

Carla is suddenly torn. Which problem to resolve first, the traitorous criminals that were standing in front of her, or the helpless child who was lost in the wasteland by himself? Slowly, she lowers her gun. “We can take the car.” 

The six former Enclave members look at each other and come to an unspoken agreement. 

“Just let us grab our gear,” Judah says. “We won’t be back.” 

Carla nods. “We leave in one hour. I’ll take you as far as Klamath.” 

* * *

Arcade walks and walks for hours. The wasteland is dark at night, the crescent moon only offering a sliver of light. His feet hurt and he’s no longer sure he’s going in the right direction. He's been walking a few hours when he realizes that the letter is no longer in his pocket. He must have forgotten it back at the village. But he can't go back now. He has to keep going.

He sees dark shapes in the distance and ducks behind a pile of rocks. He peeks out as heavy footsteps get closer, and recognizes the hulking shape of power armor. But it doesn’t have the sparking tubes that Enclave armor has, so he keeps his head down and stays hidden while they pass.  _ A lot of people want to hurt us _ , his mother had told him.  _ You already know the NCR hates us, but if you see people in big armor that’s not ours, they don’t like us either.  _

He starts to feel guilty for running away.  _ Mom must be so worried. And the rest of them too. But I can’t turn back now. I have to meet them at Klamath. _

He sees a campfire and hesitates before deciding to go around it.  _ The less people I talk to, the better. I can’t trust anyone.  _ He tries to walk quietly, but his foot hits a loose pile of rocks. He quickly hides behind a scraggly bush.

“Hey! Who’s there?” A figure yells, standing up from the fire. Another tall figure stands up. He can see the silhouette of a large machine gun in their hands. “Come on out, we promise we won’t hurt you…”

Arcade hasn’t played many games of hide and seek, but he knows that guns are usually  _ not  _ involved. He stays still and holds his breath.  _ Go away, go away, just leave me alone… _

“Come out, come out, wherever you are…” They taunt, and he can see that both of them have guns. One of them shines a flashlight around, and the beam shines in his eyes for a second.

A bullet hits the dirt at his feet and he screams, falling back on his butt and crawling backwards. Then a rough hand is grabbing his arm. 

“Found you!” A tattooed raider says, shaking his arm and pulling him up. Arcade flails and tries to kick them, but they hold him too far away. “Hey, Nance, it’s just a little kid! We - AGH!” The raider yells as Arcade pulls the kitchen knife from his belt and stabs it into his leg. 

The raider lets go of him and Arcade scrambles to his feet and starts running. 

“That little bastard  _ stabbed  _ me!” The raider yells, and Arcade hears a pair of pounding feet behind him from the other raider. An arm wraps around his waist and he feels his feet leave the ground. 

“Let me go!” he screams. “Help! Let go of me!” He kicks and screams, but they only hold on tighter. 

“Just shut the fuck up, kid!’ She yells, putting a hand over Arcade’s mouth. “Shit, Clyde, this little tyke might more trouble than he’s worth. Maybe we should just-” 

She’s cut off by a squeal of tires and a blinding light. A car skids to a stop in front of him, the headlights cutting through the dark and shining in his eyes.  _ Carla’s car,  _ he realizes, having seen the vehicle parked in its garage a few times.  _ She found me and she’s going to take me away or give me to the NCR. I need to run.  _ He bites the raider’s hand and she drops him. 

Two gunshots ring out behind him and he starts running. Then he hears his mother’s voice.

“Arcade, honey, stop, it’s okay!” She yells, and he stops. She scoops him up in a tight hug. “Don’t  _ ever  _ scare me like that again! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” 

“No. I’m sorry, Mom,” he buries his head in her shoulder, “I was scared because Carla knew about us and you always said that I needed to run away and I’m sorry it’s all my fault just like last time because I opened my big mouth-” 

“Shush, Arcade, it’s not your fault,” she says. “It’s actually our fault this time. And Carla’s not going to hurt us or try and take you away.” She takes his glasses off and wipes away a few tears, then puts them back on. “We- we do have to leave Arroyo though. I’m sorry, I knew you liked it there.” 

Arcade looks over her shoulder and sees Carla and the rest of his family standing around the car. “Okay.” He squares his shoulders and tries not to think about all of the fun he had there, how  _ safe  _ he had felt, how much he would miss Carla and Marcus and Lenny...

“She’s going to take us to Klamath,” his mother explains. “It’s going to be okay, Arcade.” She takes his hand and leads him to the car. Carla looks over at him and he quickly hides behind his mother.  _ If we can’t trust anybody, how can we trust her?  _

The drive to Klamath is quick and silent. Carla stops the car on the edge of town. 

“Hotel there,” she points. They pile out of the car and take their packs from the back of Carla’s car, then stand awkwardly facing each other. “Good luck.”

Doctor Henry nods, then turns and walks away. The rest of them follow. Arcade stops himself from looking back, holding onto his mother’s hand and blinking back tears. 

This isn’t the first time he’s had to walk away from a home he’s loved, and it won’t be the last. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Main quest ends in 2242. The Enclave Remnants move to the NCR sometime before 2246, when the NCR and Brotherhood take over Navarro and start hunting down remaining Enclave members. After Arcade accidentally reveals too much (because he's a literal toddler who is somehow worse at lying than his adult self), they are forced to flee the NCR in the middle of winter.  
> Arcade's mother (Maria) was a strategist for the Enclave, and therefore isn't really a fighter and wasn't a part of their squad. BTW, Arcade's father's name is apparently Mark according to J.E. Sawyer.  
> The "number nightmare" is the electric floor maze, if you remember from the original fic.  
> Marcus is going to hold onto that memory of Arcade playing doctor with him forever. It's perfect material with which to tease him when they meet by chance in the Mojave.
> 
> Next chapter is a super-short epilogue.


	2. Epilogue

Carla’s at her desk when a gate guard comes to her door. 

“Got someone here to see you,” he says. “Says he knows you.” 

Curious, she stands and stretches, feeling the full weight of her fifty-three years of age. Most people these days don't know of her legacy, only coming to Arroyo for trade or to settle. That’s fine with her; the less she has to think about what she’s gone through, the better.

Two people stand at the gates, a man and a woman. She doesn't recognize the woman, but something about the man seems familiar. 

He steps forward and nervously swallows. “Carla,” he says, and even without hearing his voice, something about his hesitation lights a spark of recognition. Blond hair, glasses, a plasma weapon on his hip.  _ It can’t be.  _

“Arcade?” She croaks.   _ How long has it been? Would he really be this old now? He’s taller than me. _

He nods and points at his companion. “This is Lynn. We’ve been travelling together for a while now. She- she knows about me, Carla. Is it okay if I come in? I’ve got letters from Marcus, Doctor Henry, and well, everyone.” 

“Of course,” she says without hesitation. “None of your past matters to me anymore.” She steps forward and pulls him into a hug. “Welcome to Arroyo, Arcade.”


End file.
